The Great Halloween Mix, Part II

Now, where Part I was the beginning of a mysterious evil creeping out of it’s tomb and acclimating itself within our world, Part II is where the beast begins to pick up speed, gaining full control of it’s unholy powers. Dark, hurling clouds begin to mask the strength of the sun, and from within the darkness itself… the evil one manifests!

This mix is much heavier, and for the most part, relies on the satanic majesties of the electric guitar. I tried to stay away from the obvious (Misfits) choices, so instead of a Black Sabbath song, I chose a cover! Flower Travellin’ Band’s “Black Sabbath” is actually a cover of “The Wizard” from Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath. Got it? Okay. It’s a pretty simple, and recognizable riff but, hey, someone had to do it first! It’s a decent cover, too, considering there isn’t much room to expand on a couple of notes that sound like the ringing bells of a death tower, but they do a great job with all the screaming and wah-wah stoner madness… especially, when it gets to that dizzying fast part. The Flower Travellin’ Band are pretty damn cool, and I suggest you check them out if you dig this Sabbath cover.

Following the huge, looming sounds of the opening number, we have “Aladdin Sane” by David Bowie, which has an equally interesting atmosphere and a cool play with texture and rhythm. This song has a great back and forth feeling of comfort and discomfort, as if madness was over-taking your reality, creeping in through the back of your mind. It’s a great segueway between tracks, with it’s space of crazed, tinkling ivories and time bending just below the “too-far” area… allowing Gary Wilson to steal the show, momentarily, with “Our Last Date.” Gary Wilson is a strange, mysterious man and will probably always remain so as a weird, incomprehensible enigma of not-pop culture. There’s really no justice in me trying to explain everything that is Gary Wilson. I’ll just move on, and let Gary Wilson find YOU.

The psychotic 4-track ramblings of Gary “I Wear Garbage Bags, Masks & Wigs” Wilson take the pace of the mix into somewheres empty and weird, setting up a sweet alley-oop shot for The Melvins to slam us firmly back into gritty, sludgy reality with “Night Goat.” Now, that is one wicked name for a song, if you ask me, and it certainly doesn’t let you down, either. The song is relentless, chasing and beating you down like a Black Shadow rider out, haunting the night highways, seeking vengeance. In a similar spirit, the dark, melodic metal mayhem has only just begun as C-Average gives us the full-on Tolkien treatment of “Dark Harbour / Green Mountain Airways / Illgagaard Forever.” This band does a pretty good job at giving you exactly what the title implies, and with only a guitarist and drummer to boot! They once did a Who cover setlist, complete with firey bellbottoms and THE WHO drum head. They’re no strangers to the mighty powers of the hammer and bow (drums and guitar).

Onward to the middle-point, I just had to throw in some dark, evil, scary Black Metal from Norway, with a song by Immortal, titled “Where Dark and Light Don’t Differ.” I was really tempted to put in a song by Gorgoroth, but honestly, that band scares even myself, and I didn’t want to put such feracity in the mix. That shit is a different kind of dark and evil. I feel like Immortal is a bit easier to digest for most people’s ears. This song comes from the album At The Heart Of Winter, which is cool, because the songs are loosely themed around the time in Norway, where darkness befalls the land for many days on end. The sun just sinks away depriving these people of it’s happy rays , hence the title of the song, in a manner which light simply matters none from dark.

On a lighter note! “Pet Cemetary” by The Ramones! I get such a kick from this song, but even more-so when I discovered the video. Honestly, did Svenghouli and the production budget (5$) of WCIU Chicago work on this video? It’s so hilarious and innocent and bad- Look at how they are dancing!! Ahhh… that’s just good times right there.

Now I hit you with the kraut-rock rock! “Father Cannot Yell” by Can brings us some order through chaos, digging the hole of the story a bit deeper, depleting all the remaining energy that was stacked up from the first seven songs. And once you hit the bottom, there’s only one place to go, even if it means a slow, creeping start – “Mass Production” by Iggy Pop. The implications from the songs title, the strange synthetic production, and all that industrial goodness of Detroit lurk throughout the wide spectrum of this Iggy number. It’s a real draaaag of a tempo – sorta feels like someone is playing the record, winding it up with their finger, instead of letting the platter precisely spin. It’s relentless and Iggy’s snarly, sick voice never sounded better.

After regaining some spirit, Boris makes sure you are plenty awake with “Akuma no Uta.” The titling of this song is interesting, because it translates to “The Demon’s Song” – and that’s not necessarily a song that is titled after a demon, but actually possessive, meaning a song with which a particular demon owns, controls, or literally … possesses! Awesome!!!

Now, to wrap up the mix, I have this trilogy of songs that lyrically take a stand in a corner by themselves. The Chocolate Watch Band cover The Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” followed by Ministry’s “Every Day is Halloween” and Suicide’s “Ghost Rider.” So, we’ve got The Kinks song that delicately and abrasively declares over and over again, how decidely different this person is from the rest of the 9-to-5 world, which is then wonderfully complemented by Ministry’s song, about living with snakes and lizards and other ghoulish things, “dressing this way just to keep them at bay” and self-outcasting themselves, saying “fuck you” to all the squares! Yeahhhh! And Suicide’s song isn’t really lyrically on the same level, but it’s on the same level in that it’s so fucking scary the way he mumbles and moans with it’s purposely difficult and alien sounding music. It’s some strange shit, brought to you by two guys that chose “suicide” as their band name! It’s practically taking the last, strangest and furthest position from anything normal or “right” to reign alone and kingly in their #1 spot, staring down into your soul, from behind big black, plastic eyes.

… all right, I kinda lost my touch of writing there with the last paragraph, but fuck it. I need to keep moving, because the next mix, and final part, is simply ridiculous.

Responses

I finally got around to listening to this, and I have to say the mix from Aladdin Sane into Gary Wilson is insanely awesome! “Our Last Date,” what a great title. So fucking creepy. I am pretty sure that guy is a genius. Okay–I should say, I hope that guy is a genius.

Also it was neat finally hearing this Boris you told me about. Their album Pink sounds interesting, them playing around with shoegaze and post-rock or something.